


suave a luz da lua desperta agora // a cruel saudade que ri e chora!

by Justausernameonline



Category: Incredibles (Pixar Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death(s), Other, Phone Calls & Telephones, a few Thoughts on i1, dual wield helen, evelyn is a sword lesbian, some horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-06-29 09:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15726633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justausernameonline/pseuds/Justausernameonline
Summary: (also: and fuck being patient, I'm fragile, I'm not weak)Evelyn Deavor is released on parole on a promise.  Helen Truax-Golden watches near and far, on a promise.  What happens in the Pacific, stays in the Pacific.  27.1500° S, 109.4333° W





	1. start of something new

They hover over the helipad to the sun burnishing the sea and island in the colors of sunset, Evelyn’s arm flush against the interior of the VTOL aircraft as the pilot makes their descent.  She drinks in the details of the land magnifying with every second, shoving, kicking at the embers of denial as she looks to memorize the water encompassing the whole area of it before the tree canopies and volcanic structures shield her from view.  These things remain obstructions most naturally uncommon for her. Warm air presses against her at all angles as the aircraft doors part, so she sheds her coat and takes the rest in through a sweater and dark pants, twisting the silver ring on her left ring finger; try as she might, it can’t be removed without the correct voice key.  Even with the coming twilight, sweat breaks out in lieu of a voiced complaint. She remains nowhere in the exact position to bargain.

It occurs to her then this is the first time she’s ever been away from Winston in time and space.  From the fringes of his entrepreneurship, the revival of DevTech, never did she leave his side. Him, vice versa as an echo always, never a shadow.  The zinc coating to his steel.

_Look how we’ve grown up.  Who are rolling in their graves?_

It's like she's never slept.  

Evelyn stays pressed to a side of the seats as the rotors above cease whirling, shutting her eyes to the cool touch of the glass.

“Ms. Deavor,” comes the call that lifts her from the haze.  She turns right to the only other passenger, a young woman with apologetic dark eyes whose look shifts to adjusting the locks keeping wheels bracketed around her in place.  The low hum of the ramp seen once on the morning they boarded sounds as the woman rolls forward, hiding a yawn behind her free hand. She descends safely onto the helipad before turning to her with an expectant look.  The last moments of the sun dipping into the horizon highlight the tan brown skin of her outstretched arm. “Please follow me.”

No other option but to pretend she has-- had choices.  “Of course,” she mutters. She hangs the coat over a forearm and steps down the ramp after her.  Immediately she is fully embraced by the humid warmth. Soon her hair, having grown past her chin, will cling to the nape of her neck.  The path ahead is a smooth field of tall undisturbed grass, ending halfway to a gentle slope of wood. A stretch of boulder wall lies on their right.  After years mostly spent crossing concrete and hard flooring, sinking her feet into soft dry ground while brushing through catches her off guard. “Where to?”

“An overpass and then the corridor to the main hall.  It won’t take long. We’ve had a long journey.”

“Will everything be as transparent as you are now?”

The young woman rolls to a stop.  She turns around, blinking fast with an expression of bafflement.  “I’m not…? These are details you need to remember for your time here.  Are you upset, Ms. Deavor?”

Evelyn scowls.  “You tell me, Ms. Golay.”

“Please, call me Ana,” she says hurriedly.  To Evelyn’s disguised alarm, she pushes off backward along the path, an unspoken ask for her to catch up.  “By ‘upset’, your impressions of Rapanui. There’s been little change from the three months ago, but with you and more to help, we’ll really turn this place around! They’re counting on us.”

 _There it is again_.  

Rotor blades building their momentum whir behind Evelyn, and upon turning around, she watches it rise and fly off.  She checks again the helipad, its surface overtaken by plants pushing themselves out of its cracks.

“Too much faith,” she mutters before sprinting after Ana.  “Tell me something, anything,” she says, louder.

Ana catches herself with a grab for the boulder wall.  With her right hand, she rummages into the bag on her lap, her dark brown hair gently shifted against her left shoulder.  The curls pool on her lap. “Could you narrow that down?”

“Where are we?”

“Rapanui?-- oh, you must mean...” Ana says something under her breath, probably unsavory by the minute scowl on her face; she pulls out a set of folded pamphlets.  Evelyn takes them carefully. “Did you know about the robot attack in downtown Metroville?”

“I remember clearly during the time and my research,” Evelyn says shortly.  

“Then you know Lee Roy Pine, the man.  Millionaire arms dealer, super serial killer, dime of a dozen ‘genteel’ private citizen.” The descriptors drop off  her tongue. Evelyn exhales through her mouth, trying to regain her lost breath. After all, she isn’t the first to unsuccessfully execute her plans against supers.  These seeds of doubt are planted now. It’s up to her to see to it what comes out from it.

With a bump against the back of her wheelchair, Ana is off again, looking over her shoulder as she makes a turn.  She doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the heat as Evelyn is when dressed in a similar fashion: a tall grey turtleneck with a long blue-green pleated skirt way past her legs that are crossed at the ankles.  There is a given, but Evelyn’s outdoor prospects haven’t extended past graduate school. Until today. Mundane for her involves underground trial and error with cool fresh air pumping in, so here, in several hours time from sunrise for inordinate time, she’ll go white to itching red.  Wearing a bra has never been more upsetting.  This island will pull the blood, sweat, even tears from her. Shutting her eyes, she sees Winston’s slackened face, his wistful smile.

Since everything, a hush has fallen over them within each other’s presence with her finding it rather too painful to meet his ever guileless eyes. Their last phone call contains more drawn-out silences, more painstaking measures of their next words.  When she returns the phone back to its base, the leaden weight on her chest doesn’t lift.

The separation has been efficiently sterile, if she didn’t count meeting him into her the day she enters DevTech HQ under watch in open daylight.  Thirty-six hours later and yet, she doesn’t understand. She isn’t much different with a weapon in her hands for all she has in her head, held back by what’s on her mind.  

The Metro News was all she had, rolled in a band loosely held in her palm, and then Winston shouldered her like a moving wall without any look back.

Evelyn almost tumbled onto the concrete.  

They’d wrestled when they were younger and helped each one another back up-- never like this.

She almost cared.  Her palms carried fresh scrapes as she grabbed the newspaper and pushed herself to her feet without any look back.

Twelve hours later, in midst of boarding the VTOL from a ferry off the coasts of Chile, around a wrist she pulled the rubber band, another seed.  

Numbers written between _Peanuts_ and _Archie_ in a stranger’s handwriting greeted her along with the marked _EG._

Scold her for keeping her expressions lukewarm around the VTOL flight with Ana, but through and true, she can’t falsify the heart-rending stab at her chest when she recalls the words framed in question: _Let’s try again?_

The placement strikes her as tongue-in-cheek.  The saving woman-- she refuses to address her by that name --hasn’t spoken to her ever since she stood on her tiptoes to the closing door with the slight swift, “ _B_ _ut it does make you alive!_ ” before the window muffles whatever left she has to say.  The open defense in her deep brown eyes is enough to convince her nights in prison be spent turning over that phrase, to turn through the first words and breaths in between.  A restless mind and their restless hands and no paper leave her tracing blue at the ceiling.

Evelyn closes her eyes and finds the boulder wall for support as she heaves a quiet sigh.  She did mention comics she would read in passing, once upon a time.

Tonight she has the chance to seek her voice, if given the opportunity to, but she’s not exactly jumping from the edge of her seat to bolt to the nearest landline.

September through March have been kind to her, honestly.  She has to _be_ here.

She is  _not_ hiding.  Running, certainly, and maybe waiting to be found.

A river streams below the overpass’s center, a mix of concrete and wood recently put together.  If she’s allowed, she’ll return to take notes of it in full daylight. Squinting, leaning on the rails that she almost tips over, she finds fish, feeling the furrow in her brows loosen.  After all, she’s somewhere on the southeast Pacific Ocean. There isn’t a soul she knows in these parts.  

**An Environmental Overview  to Rapanui (voltear para Español y Rapanui)**

**Engineers Without Borders**

**The Ocean Nexus Team (ON)**

Evelyn finds Ana’s face in a group photo she estimates is of a hundred members beaming at the camera.  Among the columns of names is _Franchesk_ _a_ _Golay, Delta Secretary_.  One of five.

“Ms. Deavor,” comes her call.  Evelyn rolls her eyes and lengthens her stride.

**Dos Corazones Fundación**

**Forces in Balance: ON Policy to Food, Security, and Water (voltear para Español)**

“So, Ms. Golay, Lee Roy Pine.”

“Ana,” she insists.  “You want to know more about him? It’ll come with your work.”

“Can you at least tell me what’s his relationship with Rapanui? I’ve never heard of this island before.”

“Because it had a different one before it was lost,” Ana says with the dip of her head, “like many more ‘found’.”

“He bought this island then, if that’s what you’re implying...” Evelyn takes the rubber band from her wrist and bunches it around the pamphlets.  Her clothing holds no pockets so she loops it around her left thumb.  “It’ll be better for the both of us if you can tell me more than what you had back at the ferry.  I don’t do speculation well without my own equipment.”

“What if I told you that your brother is transferring some several from your lab throughout the week?”

“I can wait a week.” Evelyn keeps relief from bleeding into her tone, opting for a slight nod of thanks as Ana glances back.  

“Done.”

She wonders how much her being here is toeing the line for Ana, if there is a line at all.  And if she asks for a bit more.  “I’d be glad if I exchanged mail with him, too,” she adds, highly aware of her own rambling, a little grateful for the lack of hostility.  Perhaps in the morning, she'll be more conducive to conversation.  Either it’s the imprisonment or post-imprisonment in Rapanui that prompts words to churn out of her no matter her will against it.  Maybe she _lacks_ will.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She hasn’t had such a lull in work lasting like six months and such.  Will her body play catch up with her mind... or has she fallen behind altogether? Her hands are coarse as ever from work, but understimulating work at that.  This might as well be the one factor that separates her from the bars. She shuts her eyes and clamps a hand over both ears.

She sees Winston.  

She listens to _her,_  wishing otherwise.   “Again, about Lee Roy Pine,” she mutters.

“W _h_ a _a_ a _t?_ ” Ana says, not impolitely and from the end of the overpass.  Evelyn swears under her breath and rushes through the tall grass.  Soon she’s walking on wood again, a difference to the smooth offish white roofing ahead that is the entrance, packed into the volcanic stone.  From the small antechamber and the tilt of the glass partitions after the doors, she guesses the corridor gradually lowers through the other side of the mountain.  Twenty years ago she would’ve been fascinated if for a little while, but experience weighs in: it’s crudely placed. Intrusive-- detrimental. She recreates the ghost of the scaffolding and the effort of the workers; she recreates potential injuries: minor, fatal.  

“Tell me, what did he name the island?”

Ana grimaces.  She passes the stairs for the gradual camber toward the entrance; Evelyn follows.  “Well truthfully, over my dead body and everyone else’s, this is Rapanui. Less than a year ago, Easter Island was known by--”

The doors to the corridor peep open.

“There you are!”

“--‘Nomanisan’.  Right on time,” Ana greets the speaker, a tall and lanky brunette with long straight hair held back by several pins.  To the relief of Evelyn's sanity, she's dressed lightly for the weather.  “Evelyn, this is Karen Villa-Lobos.  You might see her time to time during your stay.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” The brunette smiles nervously, sticking out her hand.  Evelyn takes her hand and shakes on it, stifling her surprise as static shock runs through her.  

Karen's smile turns down a notch.  “I kinda dragged my feet here. A bit drowsy.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Wonderful.” Ana claps.  “So, tomorrow morning, on the dot, you’ll start your first tasks.”

Evelyn raises her hands.  “Your enthusiasm is contagious, Ana.  You won’t be disappointed.”

_Yet._


	2. isn't that right

“Six months, huh?”

“Exactly that.”

“Okay,” Karen murmurs.  Her turquoise eyes run parallel against Evelyn’s hairline, raising chills.

Evelyn looks onward and continues her walk beside them, feet and wheels running the length of the corridor.  The ceiling lights and the sconces high atop the adjacent walls glow a pulsating green; they give her pause. Bioluminescence is somewhat out of her element.  In a blink she traces her wary thoughts as she finds her grip on the steel railing.

“Can I.. ask more about you being in prison?”

“I can’t say no, Karen.”

“You can!... Can’t she?” Karen glances at Ana glugging away on a thermos.

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay.  It’s because you have a,  _goofy_ position from a legal standpoint.  You’re in Chile, but...” Karen gestures in circles upward as if to mean, _all of this_ , “U.S. jurisdiction.  You even don’t have the--” she yawns.  A blush rises on her tan skin.

“As she said, it’s goofy.  But that’s what your rotation is for, Ms. Deavor.  One in the morning-afternoon, the next afternoon-evening.  With their company, your acclimation may be smoother. We don’t want you anymore unhappy.”

Evelyn lolls her head to the side.  “Afraid I’ll run amok if I do?” She did agree to be here, but she can’t go without her fun.  

“As afraid as a misanthrope running with laser-precision scissors,” Ana says with a slight smile.  “We are being lax but then, you are the first. We hope you are the last.”

“You keep thinking that.” Evelyn lolls her head to one side, hands pressing into her hips.  “And, misanthrope doesn’t apply to me. I’m a mis _thaumic_.”

Karen gulps.  “Okay.”

“So I’ve heard.”  Ana’s smile doesn’t change as she looks away.  

The corridor gracefully dips to the exit of two sliding doors and another antechamber with a rotunda shaped by a creamy white mosaic of several arthropods Evelyn has seen in school textbooks and on her dinner plates, its warm tone neutralized by the pulsating green light.  She leaves first into the outside once more. The air’s cooled substantially by then with the twilight; when she looks up while walking the way to a brick-laid roundabout at the center of five diverging paths of packed earth standing apart from native shrubbery, clipped foliage and stones, faraway stars unbound by the pollution of a city’s lights and emissions spanning the sky beam before her.  

She forces her gaze down then, her eyes wide and chest heavy.  “I’m a little overwhelmed,” she admits as Ana and Karen roll and step into a stop respectively.  

“You’re gonna see this most nights,” Karen echoes her awe.  “Pretty beautiful, aren’t they?”

“It is,” Evelyn murmurs.

“Any constellations you recognize?” Ana asks.

“Never had the chance.” Evelyn’s stomach growls; she folds her arms, one hand hugging her side.  “Is there, by any chance…?”

“Do you have food allergies?” Karen pipes in.

“Not a thing that I know of.”

Ana clasps her hands together, giving Evelyn a look.  “I’ll speed on to the skeleton crew and get them to save a pot of tonight’s.  Karen, do you mind?”

“No.” Karen frowns.

“Thank you.” With a few satisfactory cracks of her neck, Ana rolls out, speeding down the rightmost path at an astonishing pace.  She dips out of sight, leaving behind a trail of lights embedded around the path that fade not too long after.

Karen clearing her throat catches Evelyn’s attention from the stars.  “Wanna stay here for a while, Ms. Deavor?”

Evelyn shrugs.  “If it’s anything, it’s the view.  It’s a step up from prison. Anything where I’m not cooped up vegetating.”

Karen murmurs in agreement, although her eyes are fastened to the ground, a frown thinning her lips.  The little shuffle of her feet she does to put more distance between them doesn’t escape Evelyn, and she elects to continue her silent stare at the stars.  She can’t blame her. Ana Golay has somewhat provided a buffer for them, her absence raising the question whether the odds of begrudging teamwork. Neither is Karen oblivious, if the rising nervousness of how she hugs herself as well implies otherwise.  

Evelyn likes to think she fares better than her, but she can’t help finding more than a hundred different permutations of how the super of dimensions can end her life; she sees an exhaustive list that separates excruciating to painless to mystery, ever-expanding as she learns the breadth of her abilities.  

“Who am I with right now?” she asks, looking at her.

“Me?” Karen says.  She faces Evelyn who waits, raising her hand that doesn’t hug her waist to press against her chin knuckle-wise.  Her nervous laughter falls flat into a piercing stare. She looks away first. “Didn’t take too long, I guess. I’m Voyd, and I’m Karen.  Is this going to be a Q and A on who came first, the chicken or the egg?”

Evelyn raises her hands.  “Just want to know if we’re on the same page.”

“I don’t think we’re even on the same book!” Karen says with a deepening frown.  She reaches back to extract the pins in her hair, her signature blue hair billowing out as she removes her brown wig, all in one fluid motion.  It gets stuffed into her pant pocket. “The last time I heard ‘misthaumic’ was when I was finishing my undergraduate.”

“Interesting.” The volunteering of supers shouldn’t surprise her, but it does.  With some supers known to gyrate to their own fame, it's hard to not overlook the ones who truly committed to it.  Out there are unsung heroes with a few only now getting their due.  She knows it from the best.  “Does Golay know?”

“Yeah, she does know everything you did last fall right down to the bare essentials and and-and I think it’d be good for the both of us if we got food.  I have a feeling I’m going to say something I’ll regret that you shouldn’t hear--” Karen’s words crumple together into an angry heap as she glares at the sky to grind out, “but what I can say is that I trust you to a degree. Everyone does here, and our lives depend on it.  So don’t make promises you can’t keep, do you understand?”

Evelyn meets her stare unwaveringly, but several more well-placed words and she'll shatter.  “I get it.” Her voice is quiet, feels so insincere.  

“Understand, then _do_.”

Evelyn doesn’t need anyone else to drill the idea to get herself together through her head, but for Voyd of all people to say that supplants the hostility she’s held in a long time, a persistent force through the six months that now wavers.

Their walk to dinner quiets into footsteps punctuated by the periodic glance Karen gives over her shoulder to check if Evelyn’s sped off to gallivant across the island, not that she can make it that far nor wants to.  Mosquitos are the least of her problems. Heading deeper inland as the path taken leans left and broadens out, they cross a flooded set of paddy fields as big as two tennis courts split in half by the path, and she takes care not to fall in.  For a moment, she has the view of the night sky again.

For her owl hours, she doesn’t really go out much.  The rural appeal to live with neighbors nearby across the next few miles and long stretches of land has over the years grown on her.  But then again and again she has-- has? --her obligations to Winston, damn the life of DevTech. Legacies are with cherished ones, nevermind the material gains, and they’re all they have of each other.  She hasn’t a cold one since behind the bars, hasn’t had a smoke since behind the bars and it _drives_ her up the wall, but she knows it’s a placeholder for the lives she could possibly be living out now when nothing has never entirely been left up to her: spin the revolver’s cylinder and pull the trigger and wait for the blank, or wait for a rib-shattering drop that would have punctured her lungs and aid her drowning into the sea.  She didn’t expect Winston to embrace her while awaiting trial as much as she expected capital punishment.

She was sent to life in prison, and she had manipulated Helen to turn the hydrofoil toward the New Urbem seawall at the height of rush hour.  She saw what could have been. Not even the people inside flanking buildings would’ve been spared.

A busy mind isolated has a lot to catalogue, and she for one is all the more nauseated for all she’s done.  She is no different from a super that errs from hero work but _perspective_ , that’s what she has.  And no matter the source, measures should be taken after identifying the blight.  She isn’t too late.

She lingers some more, uncrossing her arms, trying to commit the view to memory before Karen’s understandable suspicion can pull her forward again into the tall canopy of the trees bordering the paddy fields.  There, the landing turns right to a steep descent with the path connecting into a boardwalk across undisturbed marshland.

Save for the rare lamp that lights when they approach, each outfitted with a miniaturized kind of photovoltaic cell arranged in an outer circle; they almost make her forget she’s on a marsh.  She fixes her walk strictly to the middle of the path, rubbing circles into the pads of her index fingers hard enough to sound.

She is holding in her frantic breathing by the time she and Karen make it to the end of the path, falling one leaden foot after the other toward a field cleared of trees and shrubbery.  For the late evening, the odd passerby strolls purposefully down pallets half-buried into the ground for a makeshift road to disappear inside one of the viridian tents.

“Not much longer,” Karen says, and Evelyn feels her eyes droop.  “When you see the ‘Hanga Roa’ sign, you’ll know.”

 

* * *

 

 

She has one or two mosquito bites to nurse by the time she and Karen arrive at an open makeshift cafeteria alongside a newly-made thoroughfare, complete with a dozen rows of long tables underneath tall tent frames anchored to the ground.  In place of tarp, their ceilings are outfitted with fresh palm fronds.  Four white construction trailers run the length of the arrangement, all but one lit and busy.  Behind them, low voices barely sound above simmering, chopping, dicing and their bursts of laughter. All are bathed in the lights that glow incandescent where few fluorescents dotting the modular buildings from afar.  

The place is vacant except for a white woman and a black woman seated at the far end of the rows among scattered place mats, the former bracing the full weight of her head with her hand as she snores beside the latter nursing a steaming creamy orange drink in a carton cup, her eyes half-lidded in exhaustion. Both wear the same seafoam green shirts with bright blue **_O N_ ** at the center of the chest that are wrinkled from a long day’s work.  

When Karen sits on her other side, the woman with the drink wobbles with a wince as if stung.  “Join us,” Karen tells Evelyn, and she does, right next to Karen. “How’s it going, Yesenia?”

“All is well, Karen,” Yesenia says softly.  She swirls her drink in her hand as she leans for a closer look at Evelyn.  “You must be Ms. Deavor, or I’m seeing things…”

“In the flesh,” Evelyn says.  

Yesenia hums, exchanging a look with Karen.  She rises. “Have a good night, you two,” she whispers, patting the sleeping woman’s shoulder while passing by.  Once she stirs, she follows Yesenia at a drowsy pace, both of them trailing down the thoroughfare.

“Finally made it?”

Evelyn almost gives herself whiplash turning to Ana behind them with two large lidded bowls stacked on her lap.  “There weren’t much left, but we still have some of these,” she continues. “I have someone getting plates and utensils-- someone you need to meet, Ms. Deavor.”

“I’m all tuckered out,” Karen blurts as she helps deliver the food to the longtable.  

“Take care!” Ana says as Karen gives her a quick hug.  

Evelyn makes sure Karen’s out of earshot, unless she has super hearing, and then raises her brows at Ana.  “Tell me something,” she begins, training her gaze to the surface of the table. Her hands are shaking so she hides them on her lap.

“Ms. Deavor--”

“Cut it out with the ‘Miss’ crap!” Evelyn grouses, “you’re making me feel older.  Let’s make it clear: I’m disposable.” Shock crosses Ana’s face. “I know there are many people who’d love to see me behind the bars.  What makes you think I’m better than the super serial killer? That if I hadn’t been caught, I wouldn’t do it again?”

“Because you allowed yourself to fail,” someone cuts in.

Evelyn stifles her shock of fright as she locates the source.  

“You have the capacity to let everything fall into place, yet you didn’t make it so…”

“The last woman of this night!” Ana says, the worried crease of her forehead smoothening away.  Evelyn rises with a frown.

She stands about a head taller than her, looking back over big half wire-rimmed glasses.  Again, her attire deviates from the usual in the tropical clime: a warm black blazer with small scarlet buttons over a grey turtleneck against light skin.  Her ironed dark pink plaid pants complement her lustrous black hair cut neatly just over her ears; it shifts gently in the breeze, seemingly soft that Evelyn knows she cares for it, all parts combed down save for the cowlick raised like a antenna on her head.  So unlike hers-- stubborn, askew. Unlike hers, a heart and a set of certain hands have once claimed them as a part of home, and unlike hers, she seems to have sense of order. “Nellie Ann O’Malley,” comes her grunt as she shakes Evelyn’s hand. “At your aid, ma’am.”

“My living statue,” Evelyn remarks.

Ana splutters and rolls closer.  “Ms. O’Malley is here to make sure you are up to task, and that’s it.  She is the most qualified along with Yesenia Cross," she says, bringing to Evelyn's mind the drowsy pair of women, "who is the other half of the rotation.”

Nellie dips her head, tapered hands deftly adjusting the lapels of her jacket as if there is something to return.  “It’s a low bar for you, Ms. Deavor. Follow the yellow brick road and you’ll be back before you realize it.”

“Can’t miss it,” Evelyn says, lifting her left hand up to show the ring there.  An ordinary thing, almost.  

Ana eyes tracks the motion open-mouthed.  Nellie’s brows furrow as they drill holes into Evelyn’s upturned palm.  “Excuse me,” she says gruffly as she steps around to view the back of Evelyn’s hand.  Her breath is faintly of something sharp and clean. Toothpaste? “Microscopic,” she muses aloud.  “Very… chic.”

Evelyn’s eyelids twitch.  Any moment with working and she’ll be sated-- even if it were to make an Elasticycle scaled down to a toddler’s ratios with an additional wheel.  Anything. A wooden plank and a nail. No hammer? The _wood_ it is.

“The person we commissioned to do that really outdid themselves,” Ana says, eyes wide.  

“I’m not the only engineer here, aren’t I?”

“No,” Nellie says.  “Shall we eat?”

“We shall… and I’d love to know everything you can tell me.  From the both of you.”

Nellie’s mouth twitches.  “In due time.”

Evelyn cocks her head at Ana.  “Karen said you have super volunteers?”

“If you have issue with that--”

“It’s fine.  I’m working through it-- let’s start with one super in particular,” Evelyn says with a wave of her hand.  Nellie’s brows furrow as she arranges the placemats and all else. “Elastigirl.”


	3. the innovator's shade

Evelyn finds it easier to take in the grain of the longtable over Ana and Nellie’s stares with one more piercing than the other.  Neither holds heat in them, but Nellie’s dark eyes are inscrutable, the curve of her jaw relaxed while Ana has her hands clasped, fingers tapping the edge of her plate as she lifts the steaming pitcher Nellie brought and sets it at an equal distance among them with relative ease.  They take from a stack of carton cups.

Evelyn sneaks a fist into the pocket of her coat balled into her lap and squeezes the sheer fabric.  She remains fine for the most part. All she needs is a good buzz that gets her through the bubbling hot and cold panic funneling through her blood the instant she asked of _her_.  

 _One-two-three…_ No one stops her as she removes the lid of both bowls and waits for most of the steam roll to the tent ceiling.  A stack of fluffy burgers is the one without it, and Evelyn picks up what looks like grilled chicken dusted with herbs piled over cabbage, spinach, and cherry tomato slices.  Mushrooms and-- she sniffs as sweat beads on her forehead-- garlic sauce are in it too. She has no known allergies except boys, her brother, her late father, and Tommy the exceptions.  With her throat in flux, she wordlessly sets it on her plate and pushes the burger bowl toward Nellie and Ana, switching to the next without checking if they took their own, feeling rude if she stares.  

Noodles.  Two kinds of noodles, one transparent and the other opaque and decidedly not spaghetti, form the bulk of the dish, tossed together among small sautéed slices of several vegetables and meats.  She looks between the two utensils given and grabs the fork, facing Nellie and Ana, words dying in her throat. A fresh brand of panic seeps all over from her neck. Passing over Ana bent over her plate asleep, Nellie, catching her eye, purses her lips in a tragic attempt of a smile before reaching toward the second bowl.  Water, she needs it. Her jaws ache terribly. She doesn’t dare messing with her too-long hair.

_Fifty-nine, sixty--_

The bowl’s bottom squeals.  

They both flinch.  Ana’s head snaps up, her eyes frantic.  

“Let’s eat first,” at last Nellie says.  Her voice is gruff, but funnily a smooth one at that, one of precious stones churning out their edges. Can’t place her accent.  With Evelyn’s stomach growling, she tucks in without any more prompting. The toss-up has great textures going on that she finds savory, surprisingly so, with the more subtle flavorings in the noodles balancing it out; she doesn’t know what to make of it but it but it’s delicious, better than school food.  Prison food is split at the middle. “Please tell me why you want to discuss this at the cusp of midnight,” she begins, motioning at her with an open palm.

“Who doesn’t know of her?” Evelyn’s already weak voice pops into a wheezing cough that she hides by burying her head into her crossed arms, allowing it to naturally die.  When she sits up again, she spots Nellie’s hand hovering high toward her until she, with the clearing of her throat, lets it rest against her own plate.

“Have some tea,” Ana murmurs, pouring her cup out for her.  Evelyn tries not to notice how she sets it before her to avoid contact.  Certainly, after a full day of professionalism, she looks as anxious as Evelyn feels, sitting across the very woman who almost set off a long chain of deaths by her vindictive logic.  She’s well aware of how much it’s consumed her as she consumes the noodles and the burger. The tea doesn’t satisfy her want of whiskey or wine, but at least her throat works again, leaving a dry bitter taste.

“...Who doesn’t know of her?”

Nellie grunts and nothing else.  Ana gulps a mouthful of noodles and says, “I’ve heard of her on the television a few times before.  Nationally, yes, but Frozone was more well-known in our state. Everyone who checks the news and paper have heard of them.”

Evelyn wraps both hands around her cup to ward off the creeping cold, when she breathes humid air and warmth seeps into her palms.  She meets Nellie’s eyes. It’s too much. “Mr. Incredible? You can’t forget that man after fifty so and fifty more commercials made after his image.”

“Of course those three are well-known in California.  The lower forty-eight is contiguous. From what we gathered through your brother giving limited access to your research, which clearly was premeditation in plain sight… Elastigirl was stated the ideal super to carry out hero work to realize the repeal of the Superhero Relocation Program.  About three months from now, the Super Samaritan laws will be in effect. But we could not wait that long-- we reached to her.”

“Now the resident senior Super on the island,” Nellie says.  

“You’re all just _dumping_ this on me,” Evelyn says this without bitterness.  “Well, I asked.”

“Most of our super volunteers arrived from a fair distance.”  _From the Americas, then._ Ana seems to eat equal amounts of air and noodles as she pauses.  “I will not list numbers, but we have specified that they take up roles we created for this specific mission.  We have water bearers, security, combustion, communications and search and rescue.”

“Why do you need supers that burn things?”

Ana says, “If the water bearers are out of range.  No one has filled in that role for the time being, but we are waiting for a response from Causmos, a Super from Alaska.” She sighs and reaches for her thermos.

“Alaska,” Nellie repeats.  She crosses one knee over the other and begins transferring noodles to her plate, making sure to get vegetables and meat.  Her eyes flutter close for a bit before they flit over to Evelyn with an almost blank expression. Evelyn manages to hold her gaze longer, but it’s still unsettling.  

She never knows what people want, and rightly so because it’s always best to ask instead of presuming, but imprisonment has numbed her to tunnel thoughts,  _but_ Nellie seems _more_ than ready for her to pry with answers just out of reach.  Call it her allure; rarely does she ever spot a woman with hair cut higher than her ears and walk the earth in a fitting suit oozing quicksilver confidence-- like _her_ , swapping steel for silk as simply as switching gears on--

Evelyn fights off a growing scowl.  They are nothing alike.  “Is Causmos any experienced?”

“Yes.  Remote combustion and long-distance pyrokinesis.  It’s good to be prepared.”

“If Elastigirl is the senior Super here-- the oldest I’ve met was in his sixties-- what makes her brand of powers of import anyway?” Evelyn tries not to stab at the air with her fork.  She takes the noodle bowl all but roughly. “For all I know, it’s for the publicity.”

Ana smiles slightly.  

Evelyn rolls her eyes to the palm fronds.  “I’m already learning that all isn’t what it seems here.  Is that correct?”

“It depends on who you ask,” Nellie says.  “We all keep secrets here for all of this transparency.  Unless there is an emergency… you’ll be the first to know.”

_Top priority.  Yay me._

“So you’d tell me where Elastigirl lives on Rapanui if you had to?”

“She’s right across from you,” Ana replies.  Evelyn jerks her head toward her in surprise of the easy admission, and Ana smiles nervously, adding, “From the suite you will be living in.  You both have very different schedules, but--”

“Why is she _here_?”

“It’s all very complicated,” Nellie says.  Evelyn looks at her, unimpressed.

“Why don’t you ask?” Ana pipes in.

“Ha,” Evelyn scoffs, “now that’s how they get you--”

“Evelyn,” Ana says.  “It’s that I have part of the answer.  See, when I say we have secrets, we’ve formed a network of communicating with the Supers unique to this island.  The primary motivation is to volunteer. The ones that follow are much more personal.”

“Tell me about it, then.”

“...We don’t have all night, I’m sorry.”

 _You’ve had all the time on the cruise and flight here to tell me these things._  Evelyn resists a dry remark, but exhaustion is clearly at work against them with Ana keenly working to avoid using her noodles as a pillow.  “Fine.”

“Daylight, we spend it quickly here.” Ana stifles a yawn.  “Once we know all there is to know about Pine’s assets, we can be more selective of our time-sensitive projects.”

“Pardon,” Nellie says softly.  “Lee Roy Pine? Do you mean Syndrome?”

“Oh my god,” Evelyn scoffs.  The mononym, the island’s change of name, the parasitic architecture, the juxtaposing setup of camp in Hanga Roa and the path leading to it, she can go on for days.  The distance they put between themselves and the buildings they established unexplored should have tipped her off by then. She’s rusty.

“When I spoke with Mr. Incredible, he said he’d been a disgruntled fan.  No powers. He had prototype rocket boots and big dreams.” Nellie’s brows pinch.  “He knew him as ‘Buddy’.”

 _Damn_.  She forces her stiff muscles to relax.  A part of her remembers Winston would be thrilled if he learned of such after a careful assessment that yes, this was as supervillain’s playground.  A superhero cemetery. “You have correspondence with Elastigirl, and you with Mr. Incredible. Extensive knowledge of this place. You asked only for her help.  She gave me her number. Or, more like my brother did.”

“You have her number?” Ana asks.

“You don’t?” Evelyn replies.  “How didn’t you-- oh. I see it now.” She picks up another burger.  “Aren’t I a lucky woman?” she says matter-of-factly. “Winston once worked for the National Supers Agency.  He knows enough to do a ‘brush’ pass on me.” She huffs through her nose at the rising lump in her throat.

“Oh.  Winston lended us the direct line to Elastigirl’s number, and we arranged a location for her to meet.  As I said earlier, your own research has shown Elastigirl’s the best choice. She’s an effective strategist and tactician.  She’s flexible in name and in spirit. See, she’s here on a promise.”

“As am I.”

“Let’s hope that you two fulfill them.”

“If it weren’t much more difficult.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Well.  You were saying there’s danger on Rapanui?” Evelyn says thinly; she does not raise her voice.  

Ana takes a long sip of tea.  

Evelyn sighs.  “You know what I mean, saying _I was the first and hopefully the last_ , after Lee Roy Pine had this island modified to kill Supers if that’s what he meant in renaming it ‘Nomanisan’, and you think I can rest easy knowing we have to rely on-- I’m upset.” Evelyn sets her fork down as slowly as possible and starts to scrub her scalp.  Guilt burns in her chest. Nellie is quiet as ever while Ana plays with her cup, both merely listening. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Let me reiterate.”

“Go on,” Nellie says.  

“I’m no model citizen.  I know it. But I’ve got concerns living on an island where it’s been, three months? Since you and the other organizations came here? And you didn’t reduce the threats on the island?”

Ana sets down her cup.  “Evelyn, here is as safe as the United States, if not more.”

“That’s a contradictory statement to stand by.”

“It is.  It’s also my experience on Rapanui.  We will lose people even when we are taking the greatest precautions, but we’re doing everything that this place doesn’t become like ‘everywhere else’.  We’re asking for help and asked for help. Let’s not forget, being the help. We’re working with what we have.”

“And if the Supers aren’t around when danger strikes?” Evelyn takes a harsh bite into her burger, chewing it thoroughly.  Swallows hard. “You know how well that went for my family.”

“Elastigirl,” Ana says.  “She was there for you.”

“ _Because_ of me, she was there.”

“With you, Ms. Deavor,” Nellie cuts in softly.  

Evelyn holds her gaze this time, focused between her furrowed dark brows, her right hand held over the longtable with the other gripping the inside of her right elbow.  “You don’t know that.” She feels herself rising and sits. For grounding, she fills her cup and grips it until she burns. “Were you there?”

 _It will never be enough to undo all she’s endured because of_ me.

The silence she imposes at the longtable grips her, forcing her from Nellie’s stare to the grain of the longtable again.  

She doesn’t try to hide her tremors, instead focusing on steadying breaths.  

It’s noticeable, but effective; she’s been under scrutiny for sometime, and it only bothers her as much that she’s pulled back in prison behind bleak walls, getting examined and deconstructed.  

The open night is gentler.  

Dull pain roars to full strength the longer she turns inward, holding back a sob building in her throat.  

In prison, not for a second did she crash and tumble.  It’s a bittersweet accomplishment. _Not in front of them.  No. No._

_No._

“...I wasn’t in danger like you.”

Nellie finally speaks up, voice low, her head dipping toward Evelyn.  Her voice strains without a trace of contempt, edging into something inexplicable that Evelyn struggles to listen for her pause of breath, the minute shift of the fabrics she wears as her arms fold before her.  

“You’re right,” she continues quietly.  “I can’t lie. Like Ana, I have some things I can’t agree with.  But for a reasonable perspective, you never should have been condemned for them.  On this island, everyone here is recovering from something, and you’ll find people who share similar sentiments.  We’re to support one another in whatever ways we can and must. Especially you. And I have a duty of care.” She slowly stands, picking up her emptied plate.  “I may not be the people you wish you were with, but… know that I’d take a bullet for you.”

Evelyn lets loose a ragged sigh.  The wound up feeling in her doesn’t subside, but no longer does she feel she’ll cave in on all sides.  Weariness is making room.

Every since that night, she’s always been wishing.  Leave it for the massive output of patents to coexist with her imagination and blue nostalgia.  Leave it for her for a thorough plan to land her on an island once run by a supervillain. Feeling the brittle approach of certain bright and searing thoughts, with her frame of mind fragile, she knows better than to follow them. 

Nellie still waits for her response, so she nods.  For all this grief, this won’t be a sleepless night for which she’s glad.  She only needs a push.

“I’m… just here to help.” _We don’t know each other_ , she adds.   _At all_.

Nellie bows her head slightly at Evelyn before she faces Ana.  

“Now, where do we turn in for the night?”

“I… think,” Ana says haltingly, “you both might like it."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ana takes out a compact lamp from her bag, clipping it to a handlebar, and then they’re off to ‘Villanueva’.  “Glowworms,” she murmurs in place of an elaborate explanation as the green light pulses.

A little spark runs through Evelyn at that.  

The evening landscape flits at the edges of Evelyn’s focus on putting one foot in front of the other at a time, but she still takes in the cool breeze, idly nudging away tall grasses before they can caress her face.  The walk is ten minutes down the thoroughfare before a detour left toward the sea. With Ana’s permission, Nellie pushes her up a steep incline until they reach its modest summit overlooking bungalows couched before the stars.  Sudden interest spikes in her to swim, simply because she’s never tried in the dark.

Closing in, Evelyn counts four: half on land in a semi-circle mirrored by those overwater, connected by suspended bridges surely of wood and varnish, branching out into four more bungalows farther offland.  Those on land might have been detached if not for the tall gray wall as high as the bungalows’ roofs keeping a portion of the coast out of sight.

Nellie breaks off once Ana gives Evelyn two keycards and two keys.  “I’ll see you after Yesenia’s shift,” she says gruffly. Doing a onceover of Evelyn as if checking for wounds, she nods.  “Goodnight.” She blends into the night, leaving Evelyn with a farewell in her mouth.

“How’s she?” Ana says once Evelyn has the door open to the bungalow leftmost and inland.  The second stands within the bridge not too far down. “Still a statue?”

“With a breath of life,” Evelyn admits.  She has yet to decide where she stands with Ana.  Employer, warden, lackey. A secretary who lends her a chef’s Corningware for burgers and noodles, lends her full reign of two bungalows should she need space to follow the ideas, express overnight ‘thingamabobs’.  Someone seemingly fresh out of college taking on what looks like a insurmountable climb.

She and Winston started young, too.

“It’s the most she’s spoken for a whole week,” Ana says with a slight laugh.  “I thought she didn’t enjoy it here.”

“Until me.”

“Until you.  You’re not too bad.  Earlier,” Ana says, shifting in her chair, “you said that you have Elastigirl’s number.”

“Direct line, was it?”

“At DevTech.”

“Instant beck and call,” Evelyn says knowingly.  “Supers’ rotaries were designed to communicate at far distances with frequencies so low that they could reach submarines.  The ones my father owned have been repaired by yours truly, and I was working on including their ad hoc networking until, you know.”

“Believe me, you’ll get to work with Pine’s outmoded state-of-the-art technologies during your stay here.  Which is, by the way, the end of your first night!”

“Haha,” Evelyn says.  “Goodnight. You’ll have me there, pronto.”

“One more thing.” Ana’s voice skips higher as Evelyn starts to shut the door, a softwood thing that belies the slots of titanium slide panels just after it.  “You should call her. As a suggestion.”

Evelyn tilts her head, feeling the blood drain from her face.  “Okay. ‘Night.”

Ana's smile dulls as she waves.  “Goodnight, Ms. Deavor.”

“Evelyn.”

“ _Oh no_ ,” comes a groan as Evelyn shuts the door, and if not for the number in her coat winding her tight, she might have been laughing.  

She watches Ana reverse and circle around the base of the hill without incident before she finds the light for a chandelier behind her that burns her to squint.   _My eyes were just adjusting to the dark._ Scanning the card on an panel, sleek and out of place among the wicker furniture and artisanal quality of the living room, she secures the knob, the lever, and the deadbolt, bemused by the amount.  She can’t say if she’ll stay surprised if the glass window of the door is bulletproof.

She hangs her coat on rack behind the door, and, feeling alone, strips off her pants to hang over her arm.  For now, the things on her person is all she has. Not a trace of dust comes away when she brushes a finger against a rose pink wall while walking the length of the bungalow.   Facing away from the door, her left is a view of the dirt road Ana took. It’s less canopy, more of shrubbery that makes the wooden outpost farther out left all the more stand out, boasting no bells and whistles but made with care, its painted exterior yellow under a lamp post.  As for the sleeping form curled on the lawn chair there, it must be normal. Something covers them-- _a net?_

 _Should get a compass_.  Her front is view of the seaside and her second bungalow.  There’s an oblong wooden table and three like-designed chairs; bookshelves below the seaside window panes line all sides except for her right as she approaches two rooms a quarter the living room’s size: one she flings open is bare save for boxes brimming with cloths for the naked mattress and seaside, one a little kitchen with an even littler bathroom.  She puts the Corningware into the dorm fridge she finds on the countertop. Her shoes tap against the tiled flooring as she steps around the kitchen, homing in on the ruby red rotary sitting on a limestone table just before an open window. Across, with the gray wall rightward, is small green darkness and the warm glow of the closed window across.

Behind, a silhouette passes left inland without pause, but no doubt it’s _her_.

Evelyn breathes.  She shuts the door and returns to the living room, squinting away from the chandelier.   _I’m not ready.  Never am. What--when is the right--_

She growls at the light.   _That’s seven bulbs too many._ She hasn’t seen a power line in Villanueva as far as some human eyes can see, but it’s of Pine’s influence.  Syndrome’s. Serial killer’s. The brochure Ana’s given her on sustainable design, read in dim lighting and a contributor to her tired eyes, clashes with their intended means to restore the island, but it seems the bungalows were a viable option for guests, guests like her, unless they’d plans to modify or deconstruct them in the near future.  

She takes quick steps to the oblong table for a chair to help loosen the bulbs-- almost swings the one she picks up against the window when the corner she stands on squeals.  

Coincidentally, the one with a square rug.  Running on fumes and in need of distraction, she kneels and toes it open.

The hatch below that blends with the flooring, under the weight of her hand, squeals again.  Outfitted with a panel identical to the entrance, it shines. She stares.

She’s tired.

Stepping away, she uses her pants to protect her hand as she loosens the seven bulbs like planned, and then she’s back in the kitchen with the rotary.  Wearing pants. She takes a stool upside down from the table there.

She’s tired.

Against her better judgment, she takes the phone from the receiver and dials.  She’s memorized it, no need to check the paper.

She’s tired, and she leans against the limestone, watching the small green darkness and unlit window across with a sense of disappointment.

Ringing.  Silence.

“Hello…?” Evelyn says.

Silence.

Silence.

“Hi…” Evelyn says, her voice dropping.  She runs a hand through her long hair. “...I know it’s very late.  I wanted, you to know, that I’m here now. Metroville to Rapanui. Winston passed the paper to me.  Got me to drop my copy and pick up yours.”

She turns the phone away to let out a long sigh.  

“I was hoping,” _Me, hope?_ “we could talk sometime on your terms.  Coexist… you don’t have to. At all. Someone’s keeping watch over me so you aren’t obligated to, and you’re not.  But I’m no recidivist. My revenge would be rushed and unfulfilling, haha--” She cuts off her forced laughter. She shouldn’t joke.  “No. What does it serve, sending a ripple of pain across a people? We have demagogues. We’ve had McCarthy, Hitler…”

It’s getting to her.

“I’m following the objective of Ocean Nexus.  Like everyone’s been saying: repairs. Reparations of the heart, I don’t know, I don’t…  dwell very well in fantasy. And I haven’t forgotten the things you’ve said when you spoke with me during that one week.  While I can’t be a clear judge of my own character, I know. What I did didn’t happen in a vacuum. For all that I did, it’s good… I’m glad I failed.  Everyone’s alive. I don’t think my parents would recognize me.

“Everything is on your terms.  Believe that, one hundred percent.  I’ll be gone before you know it! Hey.”

“ _Hey."_

 

_._

 

_._

 

_._

 

 _"Evelyn_.”

 

 

 

Evelyn shakes.  The hatch takes form in the back of her mind.

 

 

 

“ _Helen.  I’m Helen_.” Her voice is rough with sleep.  Warm, worn and wary.  “ _I was just about to leave.  Are you still there_?”

 

 

 

.

 

 

.

 

.

 

“ _Evelyn_ ,” Helen says, and Evelyn barely registers the underscore of worry in her name.  “ _Please, I want to talk to you before I go_.”

 

.

.

That night returns to Evelyn: Mr. Incredible yelling the name several times while Elastigirl was submerged in hypnosis.

 

 

.

 

 

Evelyn breathes and raises the receiver to her lips.  

.

“I’m here.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /watch?v=yAxFS0W_--M
> 
> /watch?v=7t3xBqAWLaU 
> 
> /watch?v=JFkRtjrrM5k


	4. Interlude: During

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school's been T___T originally this would have been in chp 4 - "and her love" but i'm setting it back at a way later date when i get the events in order. i have an ending in mind. i'm mostly worried with writing consistent pov characters' voices. 
> 
> these go hand in hand with the main plot, and are also as a "still kicking, everyone!"
> 
> "storm pounds coast" is from the montage after the wedding in i1

**(MUNICIBERG TRIBERG)**

**STORM POUNDS COAST**

**By COLE GRETCH**

 

**METROVILLE - As tropical storm**

**Andrews** **continues to assault**

 **the East Coast this** **week, citi-**

**zens board up windows and**

**stock up on candles.  Forecas-**

**ters expect** **it to last into the**

 **week.** **“As fast as most** **storms**

**go, Andrews is a piece of work.**

**One minute it might be clear,**

**and next** **thing you know,**

 **there’s** **a whirlwind next** **to**

 **you.”** **One more thing distin-**

 **guishing** **Andrews from other**

 **tropical storms is** **the notable**

 **absence of Supers.** **“This the**

**first storm we’ve had to bear**

**the full** **brunt of in some time,”**

 **weatherman I.** **M. Guessing re-**

 **vealed.  “In the past, we** **always**

**had some Super jumping to help,**

**whether changing the course of**

**hurricanes,** **flash flooding, dan-**

**gerous debris,** **you name it.”**

 

* * *

 

Before the Super Relocation Program in the United States and similar laws across the world were enforced,  
many natural disasters were averted by Supers using their powers to detect and prevent mass devastation  
while significantly lowering the death toll and displacement after natural disasters ran their course.  

With technology flourishing at an unhurried progression because of Supers’ efforts to protect the public,  
they developed to almost reliably predict natural phenomena, such as identifying constellations and pre-  
dicting eclipses.

Supers with powers to prevent such catastrophes asked for relocation to landlocked populations from the  
duress; they kept to the civilian life under close monitoring, especially those with a heritage of service  
passed from many generations.

Once the SRP went into effect, technology became the primary provider of preemptive measures for natural  
disasters, leading to a thorough advancement of disaster response and relief procedures from emergency  
evacuations to shelters, but coastal populations have always protested against the ousting of Supers well-  
known, cherished, and welcomed into their local communities. 

(Super Motion: A Slice of U.S. History, 1865 to 1960 by Todd Hollis)

 

* * *

  

_"I find it hard to separate my personal feelings on Supers from my studies.  It's incredulous.  It's reductive.  This isn't the first time Supers have been reviled nor is this the last time we'll experience it, and I'm confident this era will end as briefly as it begun, but there is always going to be resistance.  There is long work ahead... I've lived the glory days; I'll live in the dawn of the new Supers._

_Notice how swiftly shame consumed us.  Yet, we've not succumbed to it.  The battery puts more harshly at the forefront our insecurities.  It's almost as if people_ believe  _we live that loftier life, well above the concerns of "common folk" until this ban became reality.  That's not entirely wrong, but not with respect to what has always been a growing concern.  It's not our individual powers._ _We were already here, before the costumes, the name "Super", before you thought to put us into this category where we are especially responsible for great loss.  Absolutely._

_To have scattered and isolated us has been an indelible memory across the country.  We're yours, and you cast us into this... this.  I'll continue.  You think this is it?_

_I may be_ _a student who exceptionally lacks the luxury of anonymity.  Some grieve my boldness.  They're not wrong.  But believe me, there are more great matters at hand than me to worry of the problems I fall into when I make clear my ambitions are with certain company._

_You know where to find me."_

\- NU Argent undergraduate student Nadine Carter, daughter of Genevieve Legazpi, aka "Debris"

(1947)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /watch?v=pKM6m4W87do  
> /watch?v=GWh8qBdSO1U  
> /watch?v=k2bEXwLVcNM  
> /watch?v=EFeouD2IWSA


End file.
